FormForAll – Haiku and Senryu

I know I said I’d write about Chinese Love Poems today; however, the arc from that thought to this was due to trying to explain to myself and then to you how to get from pictographs to English words. So I changed my focus. As some of you know, I used the 5/7/5 form to write a sestina, last time, and it had me reviewing haiku, renga, waka, tanka, and senryū. So instead of discussing the VERY old Chinese forms, I decided to revisit Japanese poetry.

You are only acquainted with me because of my love for haiku. I had no clue about Twitter when I first signed on for it, but I read somewhere that Twitter had become a popular place for poets and they dominated the site a little over a year ago. I had been registered for about three or four months before I had an idea to tweet a “haiku”. It must have resonated because it was re-tweeted and overnight my followers quadruped to about 16. I was dazed. It wasn’t long after that Pete Marshall tweeted me and invited me to One Stop Poetry. Well, as they say, the rest is history.

It was one of Pete’s comments that spurred me to write today about Japanese forms written in English. He declared he didn’t like haiku, that it didn’t seem like poetry to him; they were just “statements”. As we who know his work understand, Pete is a balladeer, a story teller in rhythm and rhyme. It is not surprising that the “stripped to bare bones” haiku might not be his cup of tea. Yet a lot of what is passing for haiku is not quite in the spirit of waka (Japanese poetry) nor does it have the required elements. It quite simply doesn’t behave poetically.

I must confess that I thought if it adhered to the five, seven, five syllable, three line count it was considered a haiku. Matt Quinn was the first to let me know that my hashtag haiku wasn’t accurate on many of my offerings. They were indeed senryu. I also like to use the 5/7/5 construction as stanzas exploring a topic with them as one might with a ghazal. But upon close examination I find I haven’t mastered haiku at all and that most of what I have read in English has strayed quite a distance from the haiku of the late 1700s and early 1800s Japanese. In fairness, the haiku being written today in Japan, have left those austere rules too. The current Japanese poets refer to these new poems ironically as “free verse”.

It’s difficult to know where to begin in this discussion but I believe Renga is a good place. Renga is collaborative poetry writing. It was this idea that was first introduced to me in my first book of haiku. It said Buddhist monks began by writing one haiku often with an illustration, sending it to another monk who then used an image from it and expanded it, and sending it back to the original writer or perhaps other monks as well. This was carried on for 100 “verses”, each different and changing as it progressed. There were rules about repeated seasonal words.

The count in Japanese is not in syllables but rather in vowel sounds. The units are called on (also known as morae). The initial three line 5.7.5 on was the beginning (hokku) and the last two lines were 7.7. This two-verse style is called tan-renga (短連歌, “short renga”). There are other types of renga as well, and collaborative renga writing has been done in English, too, with other forms for example Sonnets. Since on differ from syllables sticking hard and fast to 5.7.5 isn’t necessary if the other elements are met. Often they are even more spare and effective in 3.5.3.

The two absolute essentials for haiku as it was developed by masters such as Issa Basho and Buson were (1) kigo (seasonal reference), usually drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but defined list of such words. The majority of kigo, but not all, are drawn from the natural world. This, combined with the origins of haiku in pre-industrial Japan, has led to the inaccurate impression that haiku are necessarily nature poems. They are nearly always metaphors for life. Since becoming an international form written in nearly all languages William J. Higginson‘s Haiku World (1996), is the first international saijiki. It contains more than 1,000 poems, by over 600 poets from 50 countries writing in 25 languages.

The other element (2) is kiru the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji (“cutting word”) between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related. The closest thing we have in English to this is a caesura, but kireji can manifest itself in many different ways: by use of a question, or exclamation, or expression of wonder. These forms are placed at the end of lines in Japanese but can be expressed in the usual way in English. The use of emphasis or verb choice to indicate time also works as kireji. More importantly in English, it seems to me, is the juxtaposition of the two images that make it poetic. The haiku form became intrinsic to the Imagist poets and most notably made an impression on them by Ezra Pound’s poem:

IN A STATION OF THE METRO The apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet, black bough.

As you see here the semicolon acts as a kireji in this piece giving a pause between the image of the crowded platform of the Paris Metro where it is said he saw three beautiful young women on the opposite platform and they looked as lovely as plum blossoms. This is the juxtaposition that makes it not just a statement but a powerful imagist poem. The petals on a wet bough obviously the kigo evoking Springtime.

Senryū is named after Edo period haikai poet Senryū Karai. It tends to be about human foibles. They are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious. Unlike haiku, senryū do not include a kireji (cutting word), and do not generally include a kigo, or season word. Many of the 5/7/5 forms we read in English fall into this category. But even here two abutted images magnify the images and make the poem more than “just a statement”.

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63 thoughts on “FormForAll – Haiku and Senryu”

Welcome to the pub – we’re in the usual corner and serving both jasmine and green tea today. We have the special thin porcelain cups set by the tea pots near the bar and we invite you to curl up with a cup and consider the short but very special Japanese poetry forms today. I have some up on my Beachanny’s Texas blog today and am still trying to figure out for myself if my pieces meet the criteria. Please stop by and let me know what you think. I’ll stop by your places too. Or if you don’t have a blog just tweet me @beachanny! Thanks, Gay

gay this is excellent…i sneaked in this afternoon and had a look already…usually i don’t like haiku much – but after reading your article i really wanted to give it a try…but it didn’t come easy to me… writing a good haiku is probably harder than writing a 500 word ballad…

Gay, I’ve already visited and read thru your offering…beautiful! Haiku first came to me in a seventh grade English class in its 3.5.3 form. Like Pete, I found their sparseness to be less than poetic…from what my limited understanding of poetry was back then. Since, I have come to an entirely new appreciation of the form, especially having looked further into their history…and you’ve offered us a wonderful overview of that here. I think, when you realize that history, and how colourful and varied it is, it’s very difficult not to be taken up in the wisdom, romance, and culture is is representative of. Thank you so very much for sharing that with us here this afternoon 🙂

it was a Monday Morning Writing Prompt, and I wrote it because when my grandma was dying, one day I came to the home, and she no longer remembered me. She thought I was my aunt when my aunt was younger. I no longer existed in her mind. The saddest part about that is that she loved me more than anyone ever, and suddenly, I was no one.

Ha ha – it takes a lot to master haiku! It was said by some haiku writers of long ago that if you manage one you can call yourself a haiku poet, and if you can create five in a lifetime you are considered a master – or something like hat (the story’s perhaps apocryphal).

I have been trying for years! In fact this prompt is very timely, appearing on (my) Friday morning, as I write a haiku every Friday for a group I administer on facebook. This morning’s effort can do duty for both. I usually don’t post my Friday haiku to my haiku blog until the end of each month, but will put this morning’s there now so as to link to it. (Or maybe them — haven’t actually done the writing yet.)

I think you quoted that accurately. I had a poet friend once who said it was true for all kinds of poetry. I had had a couple of very off weeks and I brought in a short poem that was loudly applauded. He told me later that it was a “good” poem and that even great poets rarely had more than five — all but Yeats, he said, who had more than anyone else in English in his opinion. I had to admit I could on the spot think of more than five great Yeats poems so for that night he was the all time greatest poet between the two of us.

Thanks for the very comprehensive look at haiku and senryu, Gay. The reader can sense you’ve spen time with this form. I agree much of what one runs across as casually written haiku in western form are just short poems, if that, or what I term one-liner poems, that is one thought, not two, expressed snappily. Writing short poems is *much* more difficult for me than longer ones, but I do have a couple of haiku already written which I’ll post, and look forward to reading yours, and everyone else’s.

Fabulous article, Gay. Every time I write what I think is Haiku, someone knocks my feet out from under me by telling me how wrong I’ve done it. So… I’ve made an attempt at haiku because I know the dVerse poets will tell me how to make it right if it is wrong.

Thanks so much for the informative article and hosting the event. I’m looking forward to reading.

Just getting back to the pub y’all. We had to go to the cancer center, drug store, grocery store, etc. today. I took my computer but haven’t been online since we went live. Will make the rounds shortly. There are some hot hors d’oevres near the kitchen. Help yourselves until then!

such a beautiful and informational piece. I have a tendency to classify my 5/7/5 poems as haiku-ish. occasionally I feel they fit the definition of senryu and will classify them as such, but I’ve never been quite sure they fit those constraints either. I believe after what I have read here that even those I would have classified as haiku may not quite fit the definition.

I also agree that twitter is an amazing venue for exploring shorter forms of poetry…occasionally I have even managed to fit a tanka into the 140 character restriction.

Blake, your poem is so imaginative, whimsical, clever and with the coolest juxtapositions. What a great piece. I tried too with Twitter to comment but it kept giving me email taken boxes?? so perhaps you will get a blog we can all write on for future links as we all seem to love your stuff a LOT!

Ah, I’m so sorry for that! Yes, I just logged-out of my Convozine log-in (which works fine) to try the “Twitter Log-in” and sure enough, it gave me an error message to when I tried that way. Well, thanks anyway for trying to comment on there! I let the webmaster of Convozine know of the problem so hopefully it will be addressed.

Hi Gay,
Thank you for hosting, and helping to educate us on these formats. Decided to share a Trio of Haiku I’d written previously, sort of Autumn themed. I love the seemingly simple structure of Haiku and Senryu–the conciseness in trying to say a lot in just a few words. Hoping mine have done that!

Hi, Gay! These little poetic respirations are how I got started writing poetry three years ago. I’ve always loved the form, whether I did it correctly (some are probably closer to Ginsberg’s American Sentences) or not.

This is a wonderful post. I have been wanting for some time to learn about haikus and this is a lovely, consise explanation of some of the finer points I was unsure about. Thank you for your help! I so look forward to reading more of your posts.

I’m half way through the links and I must say (to borrow an image from Laurie) there’s a cornucopia of good poems linked here. I hope you get a chance to read everyone’s. What makes dversepoets so really thrilling, satisfying and wonderful is this diversity of talent, viewpoint, and personality. You guys seriously have rocked the short form tonight.

Did the best I could. Stuck to nature anyway because it’s hard to figure out in which season to place kigo like, I don’t know, bicycles and TV dinners. Oh well.

Three things (because I love haiku too):
1. Thank you for mentioning the morae! I’m a fan of 5/7/5 in English, because morae would be much tougher (vowel length and consonants add to the mora count as well), but people who get so up in arms about the syllable count in Japanese need to check their facts.
2. The best way I ever heard haiku described (through a teacher, who was quoting Natalie Goldberg) was that they convey “a sense of space”. The incredible thing about them is that with two sparsely-described images, and without any of the devices we often rely on (metaphor, simile, etc.), they create a small world in their lines. That’s the challenge, more than using nature words or syllables or anything.
3. When people get discouraged about haiku, they should remember that Basho – perhaps the most famous haiku writer of all – at the end of his life said that he had written probably about a dozen real haiku. Even the master could hardly get it right. 🙂

Thank you Joseph for that insight. The more I read about these forms, the less sure I feel about what I write. But they are ADDICTIVE and I like knowing what people “think” about them. Read the note I left on hedgewitch’s blog and see if you find what I said there accurate.

Hi Gay, very informative article and I love the Pound and the other haiku you referred to on Wikipedia. (My own are a different matter.) I tried juxtaposition, sort of, but I am used to a lazy man/woman’s form of haiku. (In fact, I found that one of my old ones, not posted, was actually 7/5/7 instead of the reverse! Ha!) So much for my math skills as well as poetic!

Petrina to Me:
I understood the seasonal reference in the haiku… now am a bit stumped with this lesson as to the difference of yet the tanka in relation to these… tanka is the longer version from haiku, but can it also be a longer version from senryu?

My response:
As I understand the lessons Lady Nyo gave us on tanka. The nature images in tanka almost always serve as a sensuous (read this as nearly always) sensual, or love image. Tan renga differ from tanka in that they are derived from the first three lines.) These three 5/7/5 were originally called hokku and then were called “haiku” by Buson). When the call of the hokku was returned with a response of two lines of seven bearing a different image that pivots with a related but completely different image, those seven lines became a tan-renga. Their form looks like a tanka, but they derive from different sources.

As to whether you could do tan-renga with senryu I don’t see why not. The beauty of tan-renga is they are collaborative. They are like playing a game. It requires wit, sympathy and an agreement on the rules. It’s probably why there came to be so many rules regarding seasonal words, pivot words, syntax, and the hows, whys, and number of repetitions allowed. The prize, as I understand it, was to get to travel with the initiating Master poet. They would go as kind of troubadours, staying at the expense of a village; they would recite these in an exciting performance each call and response topping the one before to enormous applause and approval from the well versed audience.

Its a very good write up Gay and could not resist posting of my own ‘Haiku’ – ‘FreeVerse’ or whatever you and the poets here call it… I would love to think that these are modern Haiku… may be they are not in the most stringent sense…

Been busy doing lots of stuff, now I think its the right time to be back in the old block… of good and great friends…

I hope you’ll pop by and let me know if I’m doing it right. I wrote three, envisioning scenarios in which water might stand still. I could have gone on and on, but the voices of my children were rivaling the voice of poetics inside. Children can be louder than any other sound.

I still have several to read, and I will try to get by later. Today is turning out as busy as yesterday. I have some errands that must get done by close of business. I will see you guys a little later. Don’t worry Shawna – those voices are the stuff of poetry! See y’all then.

Thank you Gay for a informative and easy to understand article.The brevity of this form made it easier for me to make time to sit down and write something after a long time. I was concerned about the fact that many of Haiku you read lacks emotion and reads staccato… I have written just one. Do me know what you think of it.

A wonderful post and I am so glad to have stumbled upon this. I have shared a couple of haiku/senryu that I managed recently. One thing I am sure is that the more I read about this form, the more confused I am. Sticking to 5-7-5 with a reference to nature = Haiku and 5-7-5 with a reference to human emotions = senryu. This is all I had understood so far. But now I know that there is lot more to it…Thank you for the opportunity to share and read others.

It’s a wrap for me, everyone. You can stay on at the pub and read one another’s. I have to say you all did very well. I enjoyed them all and I am honored and thrilled so many of you came to read, to share your own knowledge and experiences with the form, linked your recent poems, and commented so kindly on mine. It was a rewarding experience. I believe I read everything that was linked. I hope you enjoyed the article and learned something. I’ll be back in two weeks–no clue today as to what topic, but I’ll try to give you a head’s up in time to get something ready.

I really would like to have Luke Prater host two sessions of sonnets, but I’m not sure he is ready to do that just yet; at some point in the future that is planned. You can tweet me @beachanny if you have any particular form that you would like to have covered. Remember you can review the articles on forms that we did at OneStopPoetry here: http://onestoppoetry.com/poetry-forms as well as look back at any of the FormForAll articles at dVersePoets by clicking on them in the right column.
Thanks again everyone!
Gay